Chicken Thighs with Preserved Lemon and Olives

Ninety minutes, one pot, and a sauce salty and sharp enough that you will want bread for the bottom of the dish.

The first time I made this I salted it like a normal braise and it was inedible. Preserved lemons and olives are both salt-delivery systems; the stock and the seasoning have to make room for them.

Prep

15 min

Cook

1 hr 20 min

Total

1 hr 35 min

Makes

4 servings

Difficulty

Easy

Cuisine

North African

Ingredients

The braise

• 8 bone-in chicken thighs, skin on
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 onions, sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 pinch saffron threads

  Optional, and genuinely optional.

• 400 ml chicken stock

To finish

• 2 preserved lemons, flesh discarded, skin sliced thin
• 150 g green olives, pitted
• ½ cup coriander, chopped

Equipment

• Wide casserole with a lid

Method

1. Colour the skin

   Salt the thighs and lay them skin-down in a dry, wide pan over medium heat. Do not move them. Let the fat render and the skin go deep gold — eight to ten minutes. Turn once, then lift them out.

   12 min

2. Soften and spice

   Pour off most of the fat. Cook the onions in what is left until soft and golden, then add garlic, cumin, ginger and saffron for a minute.

   15 min

3. Braise

   Return the thighs skin-up, add the stock so it comes halfway up but leaves the skin proud, and simmer covered at a low heat until the meat pulls from the bone.

   45 min

4. Sharpen

   Add the preserved lemon and olives, cook uncovered for ten minutes to reduce, and finish with coriander. Taste before salting — the lemons and olives bring plenty.

   12 min

Cook's notes

• Keeping the skin above the liquid is the whole trick; submerged skin goes flabby and there is no fixing it.
• Preserved lemon is worth buying rather than substituting. Fresh lemon is a different, sharper thing.